Category Archives: Scotland

The local elections in Scotland tomorrow will be conducted using the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system, a form of proportional representation. As the graph below shows, the relationship between seats and votes has been close to but not perfectly proportional in the only previous sets of STV elections. Larger parties tend to be a little over-represented, smaller parties a little under.

However, the Conservatives were noticeably less well represented than might be expected from their size alone. For my seats forecasting model (a regression of seat share against first preference vote share, with zero intercept) I have interpreted these as party effects that are likely to be replicated again this week, but we shall see.

The SNP went into yesterday’s Scottish Parliament elections defending a majority of 9, and with many expecting that they would manage to achieve another majority on the strength of their performance in the constituencies alone.

Indeed the SNP managed to improve on their 45.4% share of the constituency vote in 2011, with 46.5% this year. Moreover, Labour dropped from 31.7% in 2011 to 22.6%. This represents a Lab to SNP swing of 5%, which should have been enough for them to take 13 seats from Labour. That number, on top of the 53 constituencies they won in 2011 would have yielded the SNP 66 constituencies on a uniform swing, a majority of 3 before looking at the regional list seats.

Abstract: This post summarises the main points from the national and constituency polls in Scotland before discussing what might help Labour north of the border. The British Election Study survey evidence suggests that Scottish Labour MPs will not be saved by incumbency effects or tactical voting, so the party will primarily need to attract a significant number of their former voters back from the SNP. Arguing that “votes for the SNP help the Tories” seems unlikely to help as the former Labour voters who now support the SNP care little for Miliband over Cameron, or even Labour over the Conservatives. Instead of scaring they need positive persuasion with something that appeals to their strong preferences for more devolution and against austerity cuts. The recent Vow+ demand for greater devolution of welfare benefits seems to fit the bill. Whether it will prove convincing is another matter.Continue reading Labour need to tempt not terrify the voters they have lost to the SNP→

Alex Salmond claimed that there were no No votes, just deferred Yes votes. They were deferred too late for the independence cause. But taking that attitude is possibly the best way of explaining the overall No vote in yesterday’s Scottish Independence referendum.

The results of today’s referendum on Scottish independence are being counted and announced by local authority area. Every vote counts equally. It is not like a British general election or even Scottish Parliament election, at which votes for some parties in some places have more chance of influencing the overall outcome than others.

The vote intention polls for the Scottish independence referendum seem to have been taken largely at face value by commentators, politicians and even the financial markets. In particular, the roughly equal split of the vote between Yes and No in several recent polls is being interpreted as if it implies that the result of the referendum is likely to be close. But how accurate are opinion polls as predictors of referendum outcomes and how accurate are polls for elections in Scotland more generally? Continue reading How accurate will the Scottish independence referendum polls be?→